


a song of the open road

by justareader1120



Series: Prompt Requests [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, theyre about 24, this is older mileven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 20:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13725606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justareader1120/pseuds/justareader1120
Summary: It was like an explosion. What she’d lost, the memories she would kill to relive, what she wanted back.She wanted him back so badly.In the face of tragedy, Mike and Eleven try to find a way through it together.Requested Dialogue: “Let me go.”





	a song of the open road

**Author's Note:**

> another helping of good ol’ angst!

_Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road,_  
_Healthy, free, the world before me,_  
_The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose._

 

He was still warm, but she could feel him slipping into the cold beneath her fingertips.

 _This isn’t happening._

“H-hey kid,” he said in between coughs “ I-I’m gonna be okay. You are going to be okay.” 

She gripped the flimsy mattress he was laying on trying to drown out the echo of the heart rate monitor behind her. 

“Dad please,” she begged. “Y-you’re gonna fight this, w-we’re going to walk out of here, a-and you’re going to be at home w-with Joyce and—“

“I already said goodbye to her.” It was definitive, he knew where his place was now, and it wasn’t with them anymore. 

The heart rate monitor was increasing. Her tears were burning her eyes. “No. Dad, no please, you can make it through this, p-please!”

“Shh, it’s okay kid,” He was slipping into the darkness, she could only bare witness to it. 

“You’re my little girl El, and my little girl is strong, she always has been,” a groan “she always will be.” The hand that was sloppily interlaced with hers was only growing colder. 

The heart rate monitor became fast enough for her to notice. “Dad? Dad!” She didn’t even have time to call a doctor before one accompanied by a nurse was rushing in. 

“He’s flatlining!”

“Mr. Hopper, stay with us! Stay with us!” 

The steady beep of the monitor silenced them all.

“Time of death,” the nurse spoke up. “2:36 AM” 

El’s fingers were numb. 

 

 _The earth, that is sufficient,_  
_I do not want the constellations any nearer,_  
_I know they are very well where they are,  
_ _I know they suffice for those who belong to them._

 

She hadn’t shed a single tear in weeks. 

When she was younger, crying had been her escape. A sign that she was human, a sign that she would never be lost in her own emptiness. 

An emptiness that was now threatening to swallow her whole. 

It was better to stare. Stare at something silly or unrelated. The wall clock, Mike’s childhood Ghostbusters poster, their Homecoming portrait from 1987. 

Maybe if she stared long enough, she would forget. 

She was focusing on the ticks of her petal pink wrist watch when she heard the distant sound of keys turning into a lock.

“El, sweetie hey I saw this daisy outside on my way out of work and I know you love how much they stand out against the grass so I just wanted to— El?” 

“Oh, Mike hi I uh, I didn’t hear you come in,” Her fiancé walked over to where she was perched on a chair in the dining room.

Mike knew very well of the bereavement habits El’s adopted in the last few weeks. He wanted to be strong for her, to support her even though she said it was okay if he needed to let anything out. 

_“Well, I do take a really long walk to that park he said he really liked to fish by the office. He said it got his mind off of smoking. We were going to surprise you with this huge fish and he was gonna let me take the credit. I guess he could already tell I was gonna accidentally lose my balance and fall into the lake or something.” Mike laughed a bit._

And while he had been taking his walks practically everyday, she could hear the soft sounds of sniffling and strangled sobs he tried to muffle under his pillow. 

She chooses to stare at the ceiling when he does. 

“So I saw this ad in the newspaper for a wedding band yesterday, and I was thinking that sharing our first dance to a live version of “Every Breath You Take” would be _much_ cooler and take the edge off of those stalker-y lyrics,” he chuckled. 

El couldn’t help but smile at the light that so desperately wanted to be in his eyes. She wanted to say _sure Mike, a live band sounds great. And plus if it makes you smile like that how could I say no?_

She opened her mouth. “He was supposed to be there.” 

The slight light in Mike’s eyes immediately extinguished, as he looked down at his hands. 

“Mike… I-I’m sorry I shouldn’t have-“ 

He grabbed her hand, she could barely feel it. 

“Hey, don't apologize, El. It’s nothing to be sorry over.” There was silence for a moment, and El was already mentally beating herself up for having said anything at all. 

Mike smiled softly. “Y’know at my meeting last week we were talking about confronting what bothers us, so we can move past it rather than dragging it around everywhere.” 

“Mike that’s anger management, I think that’s different,” 

“It still counts!” 

“I am still so proud of you for standing taller than your emotions like this, I am. But… I don’t know. Would it really help?” She questioned uneasily. 

“Hey my anger’s been following me around as long as I can remember, and if I can use this to help you in any way, I’ll do it.” 

She still wasn’t sure.

“It’s worth a try, goose,” El smiled at the nickname. 

“You think I should visit him?” She asked.

“Do you want to?” 

“I… I do, yeah, I uh, have a lot of things I didn’t get to say,”

Mike stood up to settle in, kissing El on her forehead. 

“I’ll be ready whenever you are.” 

She hoped she would be. 

 

 _Listening to others, considering well what they say,_  
_Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,_  
_Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me._

 

He held her hand the entire way there, but she still couldn’t feel it.

El stares. Stares at the previously wilted trees that have slowly been reborn. Stares at the children enjoying the spring sunshine at Hawkins Park. She feels her lips tug up at their innocence, despite herself. 

The car was slowing, and El looked across to see Mike putting the car in park. She was staring at the rose she held. 

“We are” the sound of the engine ceased, shutting off the car “here my love,” Mike smiled slightly. 

El only nodded, and proceeded to let herself out of the vehicle, waiting for Mike to catch up with her. 

Their hands weren’t clasped, but the two walked at the same speed, with a slow fear and uneasiness that seemed to radiate off of the both of them. 

_There are so many people here._ She’d remembered his resting place vaguely from the funeral. It was only vague because of her choice to suppress the memory of her brothers’ tears soaking her shoulders, and her mother’s vacant stare that still found a way to be at least slightly earnest. 

It wasn’t something she liked to remember. 

They’d finally reached him. A simple engraving on a stone was enough for El’s heart to drop to her toes. 

_James “Jim” Hopper_  
_Sept. 21st 1948- April 6th 1995_  
_Beloved father, son, husband, and Chief_

She felt sick. 

“M-Mike I-“ 

_“H-hey kid, I’m gonna be okay,”_

“I think we should go back I-I can’t-“

 _“You are going to be okay.”_

“I can’t be here right now I can’t-“ 

_“No. Dad please!”_

She couldn’t breathe. 

_“He’s flatlining!”_

She couldn’t feel anything. 

_“Time of death, 2:36 AM”_

She didn’t want to. 

“Mike!” She didn’t mean to yell, especially in their setting, but her thoughts were screaming too loud for her to hear her own voice. 

There were tears in his eyes. “Mike, let’s go home please, I can’t say anything, I-I can’t be here anymore,” She was already walking away when she felt a gentle grip on her wrist. 

His irises were pleading, but her tone became icy. 

“Let me go.” 

“El…” 

She yanked her wrist away roughly. “Let me go, Mike! Let me leave! I have nothing to say, I don’t want to be here!” 

“El, if you want to go home I will take you. Of course I’ll take you. If it’s what you really want we will leave and we don’t have to come back. _Ever._ ” 

It was like an explosion. What she’d lost, the memories she would kill to relive, what she wanted back. 

She wanted him back so badly. 

Suddenly she was crumbling next to his stone, violent sobs wracking through her entire body. She could see wilted flowers right next to her as she cried. 

Mike caught her before she could hit the ground, cradling her and sobbing softly into her shoulder. 

Her eyes were red, her throat was burning, and her chest was aching, but she felt better than she had in weeks. 

 

Her eyes were _so_ sore. But even with red, puffy bags under them, she was ready to go back out and say what she needed to say. 

“Mike? Mike. Mike sweetie wake up,” 

“Huh?” He rubbed his eyes and let out a soft yawn. His forehead had a slightly red mark from leaning his head against the window. “You okay? Is anything wrong?” 

“N-no, nothing’s wrong I… I think we should go back,” 

Mike leaned forward in his seat. “El are you sure? I meant what I said we don’t have to go back if you don’t want to—“

“I know. I want to.” 

His smile was gentle. “Okay, let’s go,” 

Walking back was...different. There was still fear coursing through her veins, but it was laced with a determination in the words she’d been bottling up for so long, with no intent to let them out. Not until she was ready, not until now. 

She was faced with his stone again, but instead of running, she spoke. 

“H-hi Dad. I’m s-sorry it took so long for me to come talk to you I… I don’t know. I thought if I didn’t I would… forget? But it didn’t make sense to do that I could never forget—“ She stopped herself short of a crack in her voice, and continued. 

“You remember when you used to read to me right? And I used to _always_ ask what words meant a-and you would always do it so simply but… I understood. Every time.”

_“I want to go out so much- everything seems to be calling to me ‘Anne, Anne, we want a playmate— but it’s better not. There is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them is there? And it’s so hard to keep from loving things isn’t it? That was why I was so glad when I thought I was going to live here. I thought I’d have so many things to love and nothing to hinder me. But that dream is over. I am resigned to my fate now so I don't—“_

_“F-fate?” Her small voice asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She still wasn’t completely sure if he liked questions very much._

_“Yeah, kid, fate it’s like.. like what’s supposed to happen, events that are… meant for us.”_

_He smiled and she smiled back, and she slept a little easier._

“When you did that it… it made me see that I could truly trust you. That you weren’t going to hurt me. That you cared about _me_.” Tears were already flowing from her eyes steadily, she didn’t even bother wiping them away. “Y-you kept saying I was strong, a-and eventually I realized you kept saying it so you wouldn’t have to say what I meant to you every second,” A laugh trails her voice. “But- but now I kind of wish you did. Because I won’t _ever_ stop telling everyone what you mean to me,” The crack that was threatening to escape her throat finally emerged. “I love you _so much_.” 

She placed the single rose she’d been clasping the entire time on the center on the stone. 

“Yellow?” Mike asked. 

“For a promise of a new beginning,” El answered, sighing. 

 

 _I give you myself before preaching or law;_  
_Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?_  
_Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?_

 

She stares. Stares straight into galaxies within brown eyes, at constellations stained upon an always youthfully familiar face. She stares straight towards the man who’d been standing beside her the entire time. 

The man who always would. 

“You’re my… everything, Mike Wheeler,”

Mike simply interlaces his hand with hers, bringing them up to his lips and kissing her knuckles tenderly. 

She could finally feel her fingers again.

**Author's Note:**

> So the poem verses are taken from the poem “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman
> 
> The memory of Hopper reading to Eleven is actually from chapter four of Anne of Green Gables, the chapter right before the one he’s reading to her in “The Pollywog” when she asks about her mom! Sad right? 
> 
> Also! A really beautiful song and one I listened to while writing a section is To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra I really reccomend it!!
> 
> Comments are usually an amazing and endearing bonus to posting these, but I would REALLY love to hear what anyone thought about this it would mean everything to me!
> 
> P.S I don’t know if anyone cared but for the sake of my own personal headcanon Mike works at an office toward his either computer engineering career or creative writing career (I couldn’t choose!) and El is still in graduate school to get her Master’s degree in Psychology.


End file.
